As we all know, the reputation of school lunches has always stayed the same over the years, cold cardboard tasting pizzas, mysterious glop as side dishes, etc. This image of American school lunches has become so common place, that we often see TV shows, movies or books emphasize this in their stories as well. Zooming out to the real world, one California school district is doing its best to change the school menu for its students, and it all began with a class project done by the fifth graders at Cleveland elementary school, on earth day they investigated how long it took the food they eventually eat to get to their school, they found out that the asparagus they ate would travel a total of 17,000 miles just to get to their plates, being grown in South America first , then making a trip all the way to China for processing until finally reaching the United States to be distributed. This finding inspired the directors at the Oakland school district nutrition services to make a change on how they acquired their food.On earth day they began a farm to-school-project, California Thursday where they have initiated to serve fresh locally grown food every week to all the public school children. This project has just been the kick starter to their innovative way of serving school lunch, in 2012 people of that area voted for the construction of a brand new central kitchen in West Oakland, here students will be growing their own foods, they will also make a 1.5 district farm where students can be educated and experience growing their own food.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/california-school-district-rewrites-menu-student-lunches/
This initiative sounds like a really innovative start, although it might be hard to maintain,apart from helping the environment, these sort of programs are good for kids to experience self sufficiency and grow insight to how you get something in the first place, many first world countries literally have everything pre made and wrapped up in a box at a supermarket, these sort of initiatives can help people get in touch with their food. But there could be a consequence to this in the long run if you look at it in an economic perspective, if U.S schools begin growing their own food, then the international trade balance will shift dramatically, at least with food that is, and could affect the living styles of the people who grow these foods in other countries, which actually could or could not be a better thing for them as well, they will no longer be growing food for strangers thousands of miles away, but could focus on their own countries growth instead. In the long run there is always alot more complicated factors that seep their way in to small initiatives like these. -Amanda Cervantes 4
What an interesting initiative! Perhaps a cause like this will jumpstart other local projects, creating a healthier and environmentally aware generation. However, like you said, I'm not sure how sustainable this is, due to how expensive it is to "go local" in comparison to buying internationally. Economics, as always, play the major role in all of our decisions.
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